Page 6 - Empowerment and Protection - Palestine

narmeen abu Baker lives in Jerusalem and married a Palestinian man from the West Bank.
Like any girl in the world, I loved a man who was my friend at university. When we decided to marry, we realised our complicated situation. I’m from Jerusalem with a blue ID and he’s from the West Bank with a green ID. you feel all your dreams could be broken in seconds. But we insisted that we should face this together and we believed that our love was stronger than the occupation. So we decided to marry.
after marriage, my life started getting more and more complicated. I was working in Jerusalem and we had to live in ramallah in the West Bank because my husband doesn’t have a permit to
live in or enter Jerusalem. I had to pass through Qalandia checkpoint every day to go to work. after I got pregnant I started getting really exhausted [from standing] in a crowded place for so long.
In my last month of pregnancy, I had to stay at
my parent’s house to give birth in Jerusalem to prove that my baby was born in Jerusalem and
has the right to get the blue ID and get health insurance. my husband was able to visit me for one day. He entered Jerusalem illegally because he wasn’t given a permit. and when I was in labour he couldn’t make it because police were all over the place. It was very heartbreaking to feel that at the hardest moment in my life I had to be alone without my husband holding my hand. and I really cried because he wasn’t able to be the irst one to see his son.
after that I had to stay at my parent’s house to prove residence in Jerusalem in order to give
my son the blue ID and health insurance. I was lucky that [the Israeli authorities] came after four months – it takes years for other people. They asked my family questions, they asked our neighbours if they saw me living here, they asked for electricity bills and many other governmental
“My husband was able to visit me
for one day. He entered Jerusalem illegally because he wasn't given a permit.”
documents. They even looked at very small details, like if there were clothes for me and my son in the closet and if there was food in the fridge. But they don’t come only once.
So my husband had to sneak into Jerusalem for us to live together and prove residence in Jerusalem and start requesting a ‘family reunion’ which could allow him to live with us. The problem is that to request this in court, my husband must be older than 35 and he’s still 33. yet, we had to stay in Jerusalem because my son hasn’t received the birth certiicate yet.
We are renting a house while my husband is staying here illegally. We’re afraid to move, to go shopping, to do anything in life because we’re afraid he
could be caught at any time. He had to stop his work as an accountant in the West Bank. He was
in Jerusalem without any work for ive months until he started working as a construction worker with a very low salary without any human rights.
It is so frustrating to live such a life. We could have lived the best life ever, life as we wanted, but unfortunately fate chose for us to be born here in such a complicated place.
45